2009
Currrent News
2008 News
2007 News
 
Saddle Brook Show
October 31, 2009
 
Return to the
Union County Saddle Club Horse Show
September 26, 2009
 
 
We headed back to Monroe, NC on a dreary day to participate at the Union County Saddle Club Horse Show. Eros made a return trip while our 1 year olds, Rocky, Luna and Fritzy, took their first road trip ever and learned that they are not the only horses in the world.
 
We had three simple goals.
 
Get all horses on the trailer
Get all horses into the arena for an event
Get all horses back on the trailer and home again.
 
We are happy to say, we succeeded!
 
A few weeks ago we put a horse trailer in the pasture with the horses so they could get use to it.
 
Needless to say, they did real good when it was up to them when to get on and off. It was a little more challenging when they had lead ropes on.
Brenda and Rocky Renee and Luna
   
Paul and Fritzy Denise and Eros
The horses overall did great! It was a stressful situation for the 1 year olds and they handled it beautifully!
 
Highlights
  • Eros wins 1st Place
  • Rocky thinks he is racing Brenda during the trotting
  • Fritzy discovers deep arena sand and wants to roll in it!
  • Luna forgets she is stubborn and places 2nd!

It rained all the way to Monroe but once we got there, not a drop! It was a long day but we had a great time and it was a great experience for the horses as well as for the rest of us!

See more pictures here!

The Tale of Two Puppies
September 20, 2009
 
During a trail ride on September 20 we were travelling down the Rock Pile Trail. Fancy and Paul were in the the lead and as Fancy does so many times so stopped and was on high alert as she sense something out of the ordinary. Paul looked high expecting to see the fleeting rear ends of some deer passing through. No deer were sighted or heard and Fancy still would not budge. Paul looked forward down the trail and saw two puppies silently laying on the ground, one on top of the other.

Fancy now knew Paul was aware of what she had found and willingly moved forward. Little Rachel hopped off of Cocoa and checked out the puppies. They were calm and apparently very familiar with people. She handed one to Sutton and one to Denise for a ride back to the barn.

Denise's puppy sat just as shown in the picture to left for the ride. When Dan trotted she would hold him down so he was not fall off. The puppies end up going on a pretty long ride as we were well into the trails and there was no quick way back!
Once back to the barn we gave them so food and water which they eagerly ate!
Sydney and Rachel take turns holding the puppies. The one above is a girl and the other puppy is a boy.
Sutton holds the two rescues! We are grateful for Sutton for taking the puppies home for the night and her willingness to take them to a shelter will they will be properly cared for and new homes will be found for them!
While this is a cute little rescue story we at Bear Creek Stables find it totally unacceptable that people would take what we think are 6 weeks old puppies and dump them out in the middle of no where. People living in the country do not have unlimited funds available allowing them to take in every abandoned dog and cat that wanders around. The reality is, these puppies are far to young to stand a chance of surviving on their own. By the time we came along I believe that they may have had 48 hours left to live, if they were lucky. They were starving and very weak. If they had survived the odds are they would have become wild dogs which would have become aggressive and continued to add more wild dogs to the area. As someone who has taken their son to the ER because he was attacked by a wild dog, I fully understand what can happen when dogs are dumped.

Paul Beverly
June, 27, 2009
 
On a HOT Saturday in June, we decided we will never do a SUMMER show again, we headed to Monroe, SC to participate in the Union County Saddle Club Open Horse Show.

Here you see we have Fancy and Eros standing in the shade of a tree while Brenda works Rosa in the warm up area!
     
Silver Alle Fancy Eros Rising Star Westerosa
     
Our goal for this show was mainly to get there and get the horses in the arena. Fancy is the only one of the three that has ever been in a show environment and she has only done speed events. Today, we would be doing halter showing only.
 
Though it was HOT, we succeeded in reaching our objectives for the day!
Brenda & Rosa Denise & Eros Paul & Fancy
Poker Ride
May 30, 2009
 

After what seemed like a long rainy spell the day of the Poker Ride arrived and we could have been happier with the weather. Not a cloud in the sky, and gentle breeze, low humidity and reasonable temperatures. We couldn't have asked for more!

We had 20 horses participate and we think everyone had a great ride.
   
 
Once the ride was complete it was time to sit around and discuss everyone's adventures! And more importantly, eat some of Henry's OUTSTANDING BBQ

 
See more pictures here!

Rachel and Cocoa Participates in Southern Comfort Equestrian Show

April 18, 2009
Bear Creek Stables would like to congratulate Rachel and Cocoa on their success at Southern Comfort Equestrian show. Rachel did excellent and brought home several ribbons.
   

Here we see Rachel patiently waits between events.

     
     

Congratulations for a job well done!
BCS Goes to Hitchcock Woods in Aiken, SC
March, 21 2009
 
This was our first road trip of the year with the horses. We have actually been discussing going to Hitchcock Woods for about two years now. It was worth the trip and the weather was fabulous!
 
Following is who went on this little road trip!
  
Brenda and Sassy Denise and Dan Paul and Fancy
Over the past couple years we have heard how great these trails were, and we were not disappointed. The trail surface is great and the the trails are mostly wide. The horse trail system is about 65 miles. Needless to say, we rode a very small portion of the trails.

 

The trails that we rode had cross country/steeple chase style jumps all over the place. One neat feature is the Ridge Mile Track. This is a great area to open your horse up and let them go. There are serious jumps here but there are areas to the right of the jumps that you can canter/gallop through.
In One section of the Ridge Mile Track there is an area called Crawford Fences which had a lot of different jump obstacles. It also includes a gate to work with your horse to teach them to open and close a gate. We learned that Dan has apparently been trained to do this by a past owner.
   
The pictures above are in an area called Tea Cottage. This was an area we took a break in and there were several of this structures there that we could not figure out what they were used for. They stood about 5 feet tall and were about 2'x2'.
We had a great time and will be going back in the future.

This is a picture of the Show Arena.

Rebirth of the Arena
March 8, 2009
The first full weekend turned out to be a busy one at Bear Creek Stables. Initial prep works was done to re-power the picnic pavilion and more importantly, serious leveling of the arena surface took place. Before the work started, there was a six foot difference from one end of the arena to the other. Now there is a 1 foot difference allowing for water to run gently to the far end when it rains.
 
Now that the arena surface is in great shape the
building of the arena fence began.
   
Here comes the inspection team to see
how things are progressing. The big question form the team
was, "You ain't done yet?"

See more pictures here!
The Rise of the Picnic Shelter
February 7, 2009
 
A significant part of our move to a new location was dismantling shelters from the old place and moving them to the new one. A birthday party had been scheduled and the procrastination had to end as we now had a DROP DEAD date to get rebuild the picnic shelter, and hopefully none of us would drop dead in the process!
 

None of us had ever constructed such a structure before. The reality is, these shelters are not meant to be taken down and reconstructed. The one person working that was actually part of the deconstruction team had memory problems as to how things worked 2 months ago.

This picture was a common sight, standing around, staring at the ground and thinking!

So what were we thinking that day? Was it, how do we solve this problem or that? NOOO!, It was, sadly staring at our feet wondering how in the world we got volunteered for this duty!

Here are the supervisors.

In the end, we got it built without any serious injuries and just a few bad words.

Next, we fill in the holes where things just didn't quite line up as they did before. Then on to the Hay Shelter which we will see if we can apply what we learned building this one!

See all the pictures.